Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Much ado about Pinterest

Pinterest has grown rapidly: already, it has north of 11 million users, and it seems to be increasing every day. Not that this is scientific, but the interaction I'm getting is going up as well, which reminds me of my experience with Twitter when it had a user base of roughly the same size. People are going there, and they are using the photo-based social media platform.

But, is there a B2B marketing play?

In the United States, the Pinterest user demographic skews away from the B2B world, consisting mostly of lower levels of education and lower levels of income. In the UK, however, there are some financial services users (e.g., venture capital) that comprise a core demo.

For me, all of this is irrelevant.

In the early days of Twitter, I explored the platform for my then-employer, shortly after we launched our corporate blog. I became frustrated with the experience and gave up, refocusing on LinkedIn, SEO and PR to push out our content.

And, I've learned my lesson.

If I had staked out some space on Twitter at that time for my company, we would have truly owned our sector on Twitter. Today, that company does have a position as a social media leader in its sector, but it's nowhere near dominant.

Now, back to Pinterest.

Pinterest, as I mentioned, reminds me of Twitter circa 2008. The audience may not be directly relevant, and that's what makes now the ideal time to establish your presence. The pressure to perform hasn't arrived on Pinterest yet, so you can explore the platform and even make a few mistakes. A heavy investment isn't necessary, as this is really a learning experience. Later, when your industry arrives on Pinterest, you'll be ahead of the market: you'll understand the platform and have a presence on it.